Radiator stop-leak



Nov. 21, 1939. H. ERICKSON RADIATOR STOP-LEAK Filed Feb. 21, 1938 M H 0 W i 2 E MO wiw a r f 4 m. H m M F Q 1 F V/\W/ \m// .5 K M. n 5 M m U 0 W F ND i x% G. G H m.

Patented Nov. 21, 1939 UNETED STATES PATENT OFFiQE RADIATOR STOP-LEAK Hugo Erickson, Chicago, 111.

Application February 21, 1938, Serial No. 191,733

1 Claim.

My invention relates to radiator stop-leak and includes among its objects and advantages improved convenience and reliability in getting the material from the package in which it is sold, to the point where the leak is tobe sealed.

In the accompanying drawing:

Figure l is a perspective view of an article according to the invention;

Figure 2 is a section of the same article;

Figure 3 is a section of a package containing four articles;

Figure 4 is a section of a package containing six modified articles; and

Figure 5 is a diagram indicating the application of such an article to an automobile radiator.

The unit piece In is in the form of a lozenge. The diameter of the lozenge is sulficiently greater than its axial dimension to make sure that the lozenge will come to rest with its axis perpendicular to any supporting structure that presents to the lozenge a supporting surface that is nearer horizontal than vertical. To increase the surface exposure of the mass making up the piece, it is provided with a central axial bore l2, leaving the solid material in the form of a torus, or doughnut. In the embodiment selected for illustration in Figures 1, 2, and 3, the torus issubstantially onehalf inch in axial dimension and one inch in outside diameter. The bore diameter is or substantially one third of the outside diameter.

The additional surface exposure resulting from the central bore is relatively slight when the unit piece is first exposed to the disintegrating action of water, or the like. But as the material is washed away it tends to shrink into the shape indicated in cross section at M in dotted lines in Figure 2. When such a shape is reached, it will be obvious that the exposed area is many times greater than the same amount of material would offer in a spherical form, or in the almost spherical form that would result if the original shape had been an imperforate lozenge rather than a torus-shaped lozenge. Such a shape as that indicated by the dotted lines I4 of Figure 2 would be too flimsy and too bulky to use for the original shape of the piece, but after the piece is submerged in water and thus partly buoyed up and damped in bouncing around, the piece can and will dwindle to the shape illustrated and to even more attenuated torus shapes before the remains finally break up and disappear.

The compounds used for stop leak are well known and per se form no part of the present invention. They are usually mixtures of rosin, soap, flax seed, and powdered aluminum. These ingredients float through the circulating cooling system of a motor car without efiect except where there is a minor leak. At the point where the leak is, they are actively exposed to the oxidizing action of the air and the combined oxidation and heat causes them to collect into an impervious plug at the point of leakage, which plug continues to increase in effectiveness under prolonged heating and exposure to the air.

It has been customary to sell such material in a single solid piece having the shape of a rectangular parallelepiped much too .large to be safely inserted as a whole. The user is expected to take a pen knife or the like and Whittle off pieces into the radiator of his car. This not only soils his hands because the material is of a rather dirty nature, but the pieces that are put in the radiator tend to have the shape of the piece indicated at 5 in Figure 5. Such pieces naturally tend to lodge in such positions as indicated in Figure 5 where they will sink down through the tubes l8 as soon as a slight decrease in thickness results from the action of the water. In this way lumps of material of substantial size soon find their way to the relatively stagnant places at the bottom of the system where the flow is not only less but the temperatures are relatively low. In extreme cases this action may cause solid lumps of material to work into and impair the action of the circulating pump, but the only usual consequence is to slow down and impair the action of the material so far as stopping leaks is concerned.

In either case, the use of the shape according to the invention causes the material to rest as indicated in Figure 5, and none of the material will start down the tubes 18 until the dimensions of the piece are so reduced that a piece spanning the end of a tube is too thin tosupport its own weight. This changes the size of the pieces that will find their way down the tubes l8 from a maximum in the case of such pieces as IE, to a practical minimum.

In Figure 4 the total amount of material in the package is the same as in Figure .3 but has been subdivided into six lozenges 201 instead of four.

Without further elaboration the foregoing will so fully explain my invention that others may, by applying knowledge current at the time of application, readily adapt itself foruse under various conditions of service.

I claim:

As an article of manufacture, a piece of radiator stop-leak material in the form of an annular lozenge, said lozenge having a diameter sub- HUGO ERICKSON. 

